Letters of Recommendation

I read Female Science Professor's post about writing letters of recommendation. I posted a comment that got long, so I thought I would take the discussion here.

Unlike a lot of university, as a graduate student I am more than a T.A. I am the actual course instructor and considered to be adjunct faculty. No one supervises me; my class is entirely at my discretion. I choose my own book, my own syllabus, and I give out all of my own grades. Thus, I regularly get requests to write recommendation letters from my students. I don't get a ton of them - maybe two or three at the end of every year. Usually the students who ask for recommendations are trying to get into medical or dental school, and I think they select me because I teach a science based course. In many cases, I probably teach the only science based course these students have ever taken.

Two things have always mystified me in this whole process. First, I have gotten requests for letters from students who did not do well in my class. Why would you ask me for a recommendation if you just barely pulled a C in my class? At first, I felt a sick obligation to somehow find something good they did in my class, play it up, and send in a positive letter. Now, I just tell them that they would be better served by talking to a different professor, preferably one who gave them an "A". But even more mystifying, sometimes these letter requests are followed my long personal missives, where they tell me everything that has happened from birth. I have heard about abusive family members, family members in jail, long term medical problems, deadbeat baby-daddies and any number of other totally irrelevant things that, quite frankly, make me a little uncomfortable. I am certainly not going to reference these things in a letter of recommendation. These students would be better served by giving me a copy of their resume and a transcript.